[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f Nuclear Deterrence is a cardinal principle, why should it be a cardinal principle only for a few? Why should North Korea denuclearise when others are not doing so? When the others are testing and enhancing their nuclear capacity? When the US has militarized the Northern Pacific, with its self-declared Pivot to China? With its nuclear-armed submarines and 400 bases around this region? Why should UK, the US, France, Russia, India, Pakistan, China, Israel own fifteen thousand nuclear warheads, plus Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles and submarine nuclear payloads, and North Korea not have one, five, ten?
What nation has North Korea invaded? Has it invaded Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, North East Asia? Wreaked havoc of Hiterite proportions all over the planet since World War Two? Does it own a global military arms complex which profits from continual genocide? Does it sell weapons of mass destruction to vulnerable regions of the planet? Has it dropped Daisy Cutters (15,000 pounds) and Mother of all Bombs (18,000 pounds) on hapless nations? Has it committed reckless, mad, irresponsible, psychotic actions in the Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia?
Has North Korea ever tried to destabilize Russia, China, India, the United States, Western Europe? Tried to intervene in their electoral processes? Assassinated their national sovereign leaders? Plotted and executed civil wars? Armed terrorists? Pulled off coups far and wide? Sent its warships into the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Arabian Peninsula? Does it possess thousands of military bases throughout the planet? Has it hatched global surveillance states, financial empires, global corporate kingdoms? Has it built an economic system intent on destroying the planet? Is it a fan of consumerism, materialism, over-production and over-consumption? Does North Korea spend billions of dollars in gospelling empire, war, genocide on CNN, BBC, FOX, MSNBC and Voice of America?
Has North Korea killed a few million indigenous people in North, Central and South America? Did it enact slavery laws? Did it cause two World Wars in the 20th Century? Did it slaughter 6-8 million Jews? Did it carpet bomb London or Dresden? Did it bomb the soul of Chechnya to smithereens? Did it plot to assassinate Che Guevara or Patrice Lumumba? Does it collude with Wall Street, London, to financialize assets and planetary commons? Did it bring the Middle East, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, North Africa to powdery walls of death and destruction? Orphaned millions of children, widowed millions of women?
As the United States pivots further and further into the North Pacific, threatening China, Russia, North Korea, surrounding these nations with bases, nukes, destroyers; as Governments come under increasing threats from their populations, in the face of income shortfalls; as the global economy declines, too many goods chasing too few markets; as conventional arm sales escalate globally; North Korea sees war as a logical outcome. The United States and Western Europe would sooner smash up the global economy, substitute war for trade, than forebear competition from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations.
In the face of such global threats of war North Korea has decided to build the ultimate deterrent. No magic here, just common logic. It is the US which napalmed and carpet-bombed North Korea in the early 1950’s, not the reverse. The premise of ‘the international community’ is that it should not possess its own deterrent, nuclear missiles. Why not? If nuclear weapons are a deterrent, then North Korea should have them more than any other: it has historically been invaded by both Eastern and Western foes; it has been globally demonized; it is philosophically anti-Imperialistic; it is non-Aligned; it aspires to economic self-determinism (juche).
Must only large wealthy imperialist nations own nuclear weapons? Must they own all for themselves? And small, poor nations shalt have nought? Must the principle of Nuclear Deterrent apply only to large nations? How many Moslems, Christians, Hindus, Africans, Sikhs, Apaches, Chinese, Buddhists and Australian ‘Aborigines’ have the North Koreans killed? Can North Korea rely on the UN for fairness, which beats its brows in despair, or launches after-the-fact sermons and platitudes, or practices learnt silence in the face of Western atrocities?
Serfs of imperialism, including ‘Third World’ governments and citizens everywhere, the mainstream media in the Caribbean, blithely accept the current bullying of North Korea. Who is left to stand up for the poor, hapless and small nations of the planet? If China, Russia, the UN, India, allow the US to bomb North Korea, how could small fiefs feel safe amongst the Medieval duchies and kingdoms? And if President Trump’s logic is that the US will “have no choice but to totally destroy” North Korea if attacked (UN Speech, September 19th) why should this logic not be used by any nation which the US itself attacks?
